Me? I’m feeling desperate to have some easy breakfast foods in my freezer. With soccer practices and/or games most evenings and school work beginning first thing each morning – I just need some healthy breakfast items that can quickly be warmed up in the mornings. This weekend, I plan to squeeze the following in between soccer games and…life in general. :)

I know the challenge is just to do one thing, but I’m hoping to get on a roll and knock out a bunch of these so that I’ll be ahead for the days upcoming. Feel free to do more than one thing for this challenge if you would like. :)

So are you ready? Pick something – anything that will help you get just a little bit ahead in the kitchen. It likely won’t take you long. If you’re already making a mess in the kitchen, just go with it and get ahead!

Feel free to look through all of my Make Ahead Meals posts to see if you might can find a recipe or two that will inspire you.

Or maybe you just need to do a little extra cleaning in your kitchen to continue to make it more functional. Did you get your copy of Do the Funky Kitchen yet?

Whatever you choose, leave a comment here with your ideas. Each comment entered gives you another chance to win one of our Heavenly Homemakers Gift Certificates. If you have a blog, feel free to share with your readers about this challenge and about how you plan to participate, then come over and link up with us below. Or…want to share with us more about how Challenge #1 went for you? Please do!

I will be sharing an update on my “getting ahead” progress on Sunday, September 9, and will at that time give you an opportunity to share as well. Can’t wait to hear!

You all are so inspiring with all you are getting done in your kitchens to make them Funky and Fresh! Let Challenge #2 begin!

Well I must’ve known this one was coming! Last week I made a huge batch of spaghetti sauce and froze 2/3’s of it for future meals. Made your simple soaked pancakes (tripled it) and froze some. Getting ready to make applesauce bread and thinking about doubling it and freezing one loaf. Maybe it’s fall that gets me in the mood to do this or the fact that we have a guest coming tomorrow for a week or the fact that we were just gifted a deep freeze that some friends didn’t need! I don’t know, but I’m thankful to God for all of these things and for the ability to cook ahead for my family!

Next thing on my list is soaking and drying pecans and walnuts that I will mix with dried fruits for a healthy snack. I make a big batch and put it back in the freezer so it stays fresh…I just take out enough for a few days at a time.

You’ve inspired me! I will be making a big batch of your Homemade Turkey Sausage from which I can make some breakfast patties as well as Pancake Sausage Muffins. I’ll freeze a good quantity of each of these for easy breakfasts. My family will love me!

yeah. this connects to MY #1 kitchen challenge: time. I gotta tell you. When you make posts about making homemade muffins in 6 minutes or mac and cheese in 2 minutes, it’s just not even fathomable to me. When I make things it seems to take f-or-e-v-er. Doubling up is something I try to do often but it seems I can only do that when I have time to make cooking an all afternoon event. I wish I were more efficient in the kitchen. Are there secrets out there I’m missing?

My main encouragement to you is to just keep working at it! I’ve spent practically my whole life in the kitchen because I’ve always loved it. And especially, during the past 18 years of marriage and as our family has grown, I’ve become very efficient in the kitchen just from practice. I’m sure the more you cook/bake, the easier it will be, and you’ll become more efficient too!

I am in a cooking group with five friends and we meet once a month to exchange meals we made in advance. It’s so much easier to make five of the same meal all at once. I don’t look forward to the mess of that many meals in my kitchen at the time but always look forward to getting my meals each month. Using that same idea, I am going to start doubling meals when I make a casserole at the other times of the month.

I’ve been getting ahead for the last month in prep for Baby coming any day now — 15 meals in the freezer! I’ve gotten into the habit of just doubling what I’m making for supper for the freezer…I’ll have to continue doing that!

I made baked oatmeal (in individual muffin tins) and put them in the freezer so I can pull out individual portions for breakfast. Yum! I also spent this morning making chocolate chip shortbread cookies for my freezer, for surprise company and entertaining. I also fried some hamburger for the freezer, for quick future meals. I have a long list and am eager to get my freezer stocked again.

I went to the store and stocked up on meats to do just this. Thanks for the inspiration to try to get ahead. Also want to thank you for offering your funky kitchen ebook, lots of great info there. Keep it up because I need all the help I can get.

Okay I’m motivated! I just looked at your how-to on hot dog buns, I was WONDERING how to get them the right shape! So, I’m going to make up a batch of bread for loaves and another for hot dog and hamburger buns to freeze. I’m always shying away from hamburgers/hot dogs since we don’t like to use store-bought, yet I never thought of pre-making and freezing… they really can be quick and healthy meals this way. Thanks for the encouragement.

I love to make your corn dog muffins, freeze them, and heat them up for my son’s school lunches.I do not have a muffin pan, so I cook them in my Toastmaster Snackster and it makes them into little triangles great for dipping. I also make my pancakes this way too. My son loves your peanut butter, chocolate chip pancake recipe, especially when we are in a hurry and on the go. I just take some out of the freezer, heat up and go. No maple syrup needed.

Nearing the end of 1st trimester yuckies here… so VERY thankful for all the freezer meals I got stashed away beforehand! Hubby has been able to feed the 3 yr old, 2 yr old, and 1 yr old without *too* much hassle! :D

I wish had more room to stock up the freezer but my side by side fridge/freezer seems to fill so easily, I never have room. Maybe clean out and re-organize the freezer should go on my list. But I did need to do some cooking ahead for this week, we have something going on every day this week so I cooked ahead all the meat so when we come home I can steam some veggies and or make a salad and we are all set. Now that the weather is cooling off I will be taking the opportunity to make some pancakes for the freezer and work on making some room to keep them in there. :)

I made two meat loaves for later while making supper tonight. I’m inspired to go make something else for breakfast now after reading this! I’ve got some mangoes that need to be made into muffins…thanks for the encouragement!

I made up some extra muffins with breakfast this morning. It’s not much, but it will make one morning this week a little easier! I plan to cut up fresh veggies for the week this afternoon while we’re watching a little football. :)

A triple batch of whole wheat waffles so far… on to three browning banana’s worth of bread and a quadruple batch of whole wheat pizza crust…then as much spaghetti sauce as my garden tomatoes will make!!!

Have been camping this weekend, so unable to cook and freeze items. I did organize the camper kitchen. I plan to can salsa this week, so maybe that counts for preparing food in advance to use later. Thanks for all your great recipes.

I made a batch of your homemade poptarts tonight. I also made two loaves whole wheat bread, 4 small loaves of cinnamon swirl bread, 2 loaves of zucchini bread and 4 small loaves of chocolate zucchini bread…half of all that I froze for later.

So, over the weekend, we were able to make extra batches of waffles to freeze for a quick breakfast, a double batch of date bars (42) to freeze for quick, nutritious snacks for the field trips we’ll be taking this fall, an extra yummy batch of homemade kind bars that were almost too good to put into the freezer! Today I’ll be making red and green ketchup for our family to use over the year with tomatoes we’ve been collecting from our garden, while baking two whole chickens to put into meals for the week. I’ll make homemade chicken stock from the bones and skin overnight to freeze for yummy soups this fall as it begins to cool down. It feels good to get food ready to go for a large, busy family.